“Not my parents. They didn’t want to know. My mother…she thought that Laurena had been unfaithful to Uncle Ciro years ago, and that Brazio was not his real son. My mother said she believed the fever was God’s way of passing judgment on Laurena, and all that Laurena had done had made Uncle Ciro the way he was. It was a sad thing, but she wanted nothing to do with Brazio.”
“But it’s possible he told someone else?”
“Si,” she said. “Possible.”
“You told all this to the professor?”
“Si.”
“Let me guess what happened next,” said Matthew. “Professor Fell asked you to write down a list of the people present at Ciro’s funeral?”
“Correct. There were five others besides myself and my parents.”
“But he doesn’t know Brazio mentioned the Amarone?” He waited for her to answer with a shake of the head. “Why do you think your cousin might have mentioned, of all things, a variety of wine?”
“I have no idea,” she said, again with a shrug. “Unless…he works in a vineyard somewhere.”
Matthew nodded. “Yes. A vineyard somewhere.” Of course it could be that Brazio simply liked Amarone and was planning to get drunk on it after the funeral, but…thirteen years a good age for Amarone? Spoken like someone who understood and valued the aging process.
A vineyard worker? Or a vineyard owner?
And what part of Italy might the grape that produced the Amarone be grown in?
But this was, as Rosabella had said, more than three years ago. Matthew recalled that on Pendulum Island Fell made the announcement regarding Brazio that He was last seen one year ago in Florence, and has since vanished.
Gone home to the vineyard, perhaps? Out in the country, a distance from any city?
Vanished, at least, from the eyes of Professor Fell.
For the present.
“Rosabella,” said Matthew, “if the professor calls you back to the house and asks you more questions, it is very important that you not mention the Amarone. You, Madam Candoleri and Di Petri are here because the professor wants Brazio. I’m beginning to think he wants Brazio for whatever it is that your Uncle Ciro created in that laboratory, because if it wasn’t destroyed then Brazio may know where it is. What happened to the contents of Ciro’s house? Did Brazio take anything with him when he left?”
“I was thirteen years old,” she said. “I hated the funeral. I just wanted to get back to my dolls that I named and put makeup on. Everything else that was going on…I didn’t care. These things the professor has already asked me, and I answered the same.”
“I understand.”
“I’ve been with the madam for only a year,” she continued. “Tell me the truth. If the professor does not find Brazio, will he never let us go?”
“The truth,” said Matthew. “It doesn’t matter if the professor finds Brazio or not. He’ll never let you—or any of us—go.” She staggered back a step, her hand flying up to her mouth, and he reached out and caught her arm to steady her. “That doesn’t mean,” he said, “that we’ll never get out of here. We can’t give up. Most of the people here are on some kind of drug to keep them complacent…opulenti,” he translated in Latin. “You and Di Petri are going to have to be strong for the madam. For the time being, that’s all you can do.”
There were tears in her eyes. He said, as gently but as firmly as he could, “I wish crying would help. It will not.”
He stood with her awhile longer, until her composure returned. She was a young girl, innocent in her ways, yet the year spent in the employ of Madam Candoleri had left its mark on her; she was tougher than she appeared.
“I’m going to be all right,” she said.
“We’ll find a way,” he told her, and even though such a statement sounded hollow at the moment, he hoped he could follow through with it…for the sake, really, of not only Rosabella, Berry, Hudson, Judge Archer, Di Petri and Madam Candoleri but all the poor souls caught here in the beautiful grave, even the basketweavers and stargazers.
He hoped. But damned if he could figure out how.
“Thank you for your time and your answers,” he said, and then he turned away.
Six
The Demoniac
Thirty-Seven
THE dining room to which Matthew was shown had wallpaper of dark red. Heavy black velvet curtains covered the room’s two windows. Above the dining table, which had legs carved to resemble dolphins leaping from the waves, was not an octopus chandelier but a simple black wrought-iron wagon wheel arrangement that held six tapers. Three more candles burned at the middle of the table around an interesting centerpiece: a blue-and-gold marbled bowl that held not an arrangement of flowers but a tangle of ebony thorns. The sinister centerpiece notwithstanding, all the illumination gave the room a ruddy glow that might have been cheerful on any other occasion.
Clad in a black suit and clean white shirt with a white cravat, Matthew found himself first to the feast. The man who’d escorted him from his cottage back to Fell’s battlement was a hawk-nosed gent with a silent disposition, one of the men Matthew had seen during his stay at Mother Deare’s but had never spoken to.
The table was set for three, with one chair at the head and two chairs opposite each other. Small white cards—not of the death variety, Matthew was pleased to see—indicated that Matthew Corbett was to sit on the professor’s left while William Atherton Archer was on the right. Matthew took his place and waited. His escort left the room through another door. The candles sputtered and fretted, perhaps mirroring Matthew’s internals though his external was as calm as a baby’s breath. It was hard work, keeping such a disguise in place.
In about another minute there came the sound of footsteps approaching along the same corridor that had brought Matthew to this room.
Entering first was Judge Archer, followed by Julian Devane. Archer’s pallidity and the hollowness of his eyes indicated that, though he might be up and about, the severity of his gunshot wound coupled with his entry into the domain of Professor Fell was not a complement to one’s sterling health. Still, his expression was resolute, his mouth firm and his chin uplifted with a goodly measure of dignity. His blonde hair was tied back in a queue with a black ribbon and he too wore a black suit, white shirt and white cravat, as formality seemed to be correct for the evening. Matthew wondered if Archer thought, as he did, that it was proper manners to go well-dressed to the grave, beautiful or not.
To his credit, the judge drew up a warm smile that was absolutely a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from his first glance upon Matthew that day in his courtroom.
“Good evening, young sir,” he said. “Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
Matthew was taken aback. Was Archer already made insensible by drugs?
Devane said, “You’ve been told that your game is up. Do you persist in this?”
“I’m sorry, but I still have no idea what you mean.” Archer drew back his chair and sat down, and Matthew noted that he winced just a bit and briefly put a hand to his wounded side. “I’ve never seen this young man before.”
“Sure.” Devane gave him a cold smile, and then he exited left the room.
Immediately Archer’s index finger went to his lips, and his expression told Matthew to beware any ears that might be listening.
Archer spread his napkin in his lap. “A fine night for a dinner,” he said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mister—?”
“Matthew Corbett.”
“Ah, Mr. Corbett! Pleased to meet you. I’m William Archer.” As he spoke, his gaze was moving back and forth in search of the revealing glint of light through a peephole. “Are you a local resident?”
“No sir, I’m from the colonies. New York, in fact.”
“Really?” His eyes continued to search, but they snagged for a few seconds on Matthew’s Black-Eyed Broodie tattoo. “I understand New York is growing to be quite a town.”
“Growing, yes sir, but it’ll be some time before it’s the
equal of London.”
“Very few places,” he replied with just a hint of bitterness, “are the equal of London. You should wish New York never becomes so.” He arranged his silverware this way and that, his fingers nervous though he wore the same disguise of calm that Matthew had manufactured. “I hope,” he said, “that the plan for New York never becomes as disjointed and chaotic as that of London. Such plans can go awry, and yet even if the result is obtained, it may not be exactly the result one had envisioned. Then apologies must be offered in a profuse manner, but the fact remains that ofttimes the best intention explodes in one’s face. Do you follow, sir?”
“I do.”
“You seem a bright young man. Pity we’ve not met before this moment.”
There came the sound of polite applause.
Into the room walked Professor Danton Idris Fell, wearing a silk robe of crimson with gold trim at collar and cuffs.
He smiled and gave a slight bow to his guests. “Pardon the interruption, but I’ve been enjoying this play and I wished to show my appreciation. You know, I’ve intended for some time to start a drama troupe here. You two may well be the superlative members.”
Archer put on a dumb face. “Sir?” he asked. Then he started to stand to show a feigned respect for his host.
“Please stay seated. Those who have been shot and recently nursed back from near-death have no business getting up and down from the table. Good evening, Matthew. Feeling all better now?”
“Tip top.”
“Excellent.” Fell took his place at the head of the table. “We’ll be having our first course in a few minutes. Oh, here’s the wine.” A heavy-set, black-haired man who looked as much a kitchen servant as a buzzard could be a hummingbird came in through the opposite door bearing a bottle, which he laboriously began to uncork while standing beside the professor. “A nice full-bodied Cinsault,” said the professor. “Free of any additives, on the honor of my house. We’ll be having a very fine swordfish tonight so pardon my not offering the white, but my personal taste runs darker.”
Matthew nearly broke out in a sweat keeping himself from commenting on that remark. He watched the pair of ham-hands pouring wine into his glass and said, just for the hell of it, “I also prefer the red. Syrah, Pinot Noir, Amarone, Gamay…all those pique my interest.”
“I had no idea you were so worldly,” came the smooth reply. “An Italian wine included among the French? If one or the other got wind of that, you might be responsible for starting a war. Thank you, Martin,” he told the attendant. “Give us a moment or two and then we’ll get started.” He held up his glass. “May I offer a toast, gentlemen? To your health, to truth, and to the future.”
“Hear, hear,” said Archer.
Matthew drank with the others. Had there been any reaction to the use of the word Amarone other than Fell’s observation of its Italian origin? He didn’t think so, but he decided not to be rash or stupid. Once a cat was out of its bag, one could not get it back in without being clawed to pieces.
Fell put his glass back down upon the table.
He smiled thinly at Judge Archer. Matthew had the sense that a moment of reckoning had arrived.
Fell said, “I imagine you’ve heard many interesting cases, sir. Would you entertain us by reciting a few?”
So it went for the next half-hour, as if this dining room sat in a house on a street in high-class London, and the lordly gentlemen here were discussing the stuff of life, business and circumstance much as would be discussed at any exclusive club. A course of squid salad and clam chowder was offered, and Fell insisted they at least try the side dish of boiled green seaweed adorned with small onions. Fell listened attentively as Archer went on about such defendants as Zebulon Whittington the horn merchant who had stabbed his partner to death with a wild boar’s tusk, Ann Clark the widow who displayed her hatred of men by murdering eight of them with poisoned mushrooms in her boarding-house, and the notorious and handsome George Parker, the Flower Man, who roamed the well-to-do neighborhoods of London offering young servant girls the aroma of a bouquet that had a nose-cutting knifeblade at its center.
Then the judge stopped speaking, because the main course was served.
The large baked swordfish on a sea-green platter still wore its crusted silver skin. Its head had been removed and replaced with the golden-bearded mask of Albion.
The platter was put down upon the table, and Martin showed he might not be very proficient with a corkscrew but he was the master of an eight-inch blade.
“My, that looks tasty!” said Professor Fell, with a little joyous clasping of his hands before his face.
Martin served swordfish steaks to every plate. Another platter of fried potatoes with onions and leeks was brought out, along with cups of sherry cream and vinegar sauce if one wished to anoint the swordfish. Martin left the room, the professor picked up his knife and fork and began to eat.
A long silence followed. Archer caught Matthew’s gaze and his eyes narrowed just a fraction, the meaning Matthew caught being: Who knows what’s next?
“You two gentlemen,” the professor said as he ate, with pauses to sip from the wineglass that Martin had refreshed, “are quite the intelligent ones, aren’t you? Or is the word crafty? Well, you can’t be too crafty or you wouldn’t have wound up here.”
“Crafty, sir?” asked Archer.
A flash of irritation passed across Fell’s face, and then his expression returned to its remote normality. “You might like to know that a compatriot of yours is a resident. The Right Honorable John Mayes has been here for two years. I would have had him killed for his hand in fouling my affairs, but in addition to biologics I also have an interest in astronomy, so here he will reside until he finishes the book he’s writing for me on that subject, upon which he is a recognized expert.”
Matthew dared to speak up. “I’ll wager that book will be a real treasurehouse of knowledge, if he’s been given one speck of what I had this morning.”
“Indeed. No, he’s simply been given something to help him relax and to throw off the chains of the society that bound him. The book is going slowly but surely. Actually, John is quite content here.”
“Content is an Atlantic’s width away from happy.”
“Oh, not so far. Judge Archer, you’re not eating. The fish doesn’t appeal to you?”
Archer began to eat, and Matthew hoped he was the only one who noticed the judge’s hand tremble but he doubted it. The question was: did the tremble originate from fear, or from suppressed rage in the presence of the man who had not only caused his wife’s agonized death but had been such a dark stain on the whole civilization of England? Matthew figured on the latter.
“It seems to me, Danton,” said Matthew, “that your affairs have lately been fouling left and right.”
Fell laughed like a soft cough. “Unfortunately true enough. William, you allied yourself with a formidable force in Matthew Corbett. He might not look like much, but he has a way about him. You must meet the two people who came from New York to find him, but it should be soon because you can’t do much conversing with dishrags.”
The urge to take his arm and sweep everything off the table in the direction of Fell’s lap gripped Matthew like a fever. He thought if he picked up the wineglass at that moment it might explode in his hand. He stared at the piece of fish on his plate, as the seconds ticked past. Then he swallowed his own rage down and continued eating, but his face felt misshapen by the slow movements of inner pressures.
“Tell me,” the professor said to Archer, “just exactly what your masquerade has been about? What point was it to execute six of my most underling errand boys? One of them, I might point out, who wore the tattoo of a Whitechapel gang exactly the same as the mark on Matthew’s hand…and dear Matthew, as I told you before, you do get around. But tell me, Judge Archer, what did you hope to accomplish by nettling me in these miniscule ways? You seemed to know a lot about me and my influence. Why didn’t you lie in wait for Judge Chamb
erlin, and cut his throat as he came home from the court? Why didn’t you murder the lawyers, Edwin Wickett and Humphrey Mousekeller? Or…better still…why didn’t you go dressed as Albion to the halls of Parliament, and use your saber on…well, I’m sure you know at least three of the names. I ask the question: why not murder someone whose demise might really cause me an uneasy hour or two?”
Fell smiled at Archer over a piece of fish hanging from his fork. “Because, Judge Archer,” he said, “the simple answer is: you are evil.”
He ate the fish.
Archer sat like a piece of stone.
“Yes, evil,” Fell repeated. His smile was gone. “You attacked and murdered six men who had no idea why they were being so brutally dispatched. You attacked men who did not matter the least in the larger scheme of things. Of course I had to get them out of gaol, it was a question of honor. But to stalk and murder small men, when larger targets were parading around within your sight every single day…that is evil, Albion. May I call you that?”
Archer did not answer, nor did he react in any way. He might have been dead with his eyes open and staring but for the slow rise and fall of his breathing.
“Albion,” Fell said, with a twist of the mouth. “I understand the Pin gave you that name, but I’m sure it’s one you relished. Do you know the meaning of it, Matthew? I’ll tell you anyway. Albion: the great mythical giant and the spiritual protector of the civilization of England. Doesn’t that sound lofty and noble? A single man takes it upon himself to attack what he sees as the deep corruption that is rotting our country, and therefore he kills six stupid errand boys? Eight, if you include Mother Deare’s pence-a-dozen hired guns. I would laugh about this if I didn’t find it absolutely pathetic. Is this a problem you have with the blackmailing I’m doing of public figures who put their greed and their idiocy to work and tripped over their own league-long cocks? Does it have to do with the purloining of secret papers that will send a hundred thousand English boys to die in war over a pot of foreign gold? Does it have to do with the White Velvet, which for a short time soothes the agony of souls who live under whips every day of their lives and so must leave their own minds to find a place of peace? Oh, Albion…how you disappoint me! Here I was expecting a great debate, a great verbal and mental contest over the true meaning of good and evil, and there you sit like a fig of filth about to slide into the gutter. Look at Albion, Matthew! See him unmasked, as he really is! Albion!” Fell’s voice had risen to what was for him a shout. Archer’s head turned toward the professor, his eyes dimmed.
Freedom of the Mask Page 48